To Zendokan: xD Wasn't reading dates. I saw people giving someone advice, and they were practitioners of other styles. Someone asked a valid question, which I felt someone should answer from the other side. Sorry, if it is inconvenient for people to be alerted to a new post from a long-dead thread. Just wanted people to be well-informed, because people are still reading this. I was just surfing the internet when I came upon it, so I read it. Some people will take everything into account when choosing a style to learn, so I wanted to put in my two cents.

To JudoA: It's a smaller dojo in Canada, specifically, Ontario. It's registered, as all MA dojos must be to train, but it is not affiliated with Canada Ninjitsu. Last I heard, they were still out of Guelph. I've well graduated university from Guelph, so I am no longer with them. And the reason why you won't find any good ones on youtube, is because all of the "pretty" styles are showcased, things that will make you "look cool" but are ultimately useless. The ninjitsu dojos that you want to be in don't advertise excessively, they will let you know that you are there, and they won't aggravate the situation any further than that. You make your choices, right?

I'm not a LARPer, and ninjitsu practitioners don't compete in sanctioned tournies, because their style is not built around those types of competitions. Again, it is build around self-defense and manipulation of momentum and force, being resourceful, and using what is at your disposal. In a tournie, with those rules, and mountains of flesh running at you with nowhere to role, run or any of the like, we are sitting ducks. Rest well knowing that in an MMA ring, we WILL lose. lol

Lastly, most dojos do not spar in class/dojo, but they do encourage the "real-life" practice that sparring entails. As such, the students are encouraged to spar in their own time with each other. And more often than not, it is full contact sparring, because they all believe that you learn nothing when you are pulling your punches.

If a ninjutsu instructor is going to encourage his students to spar, then why doesn't he just let them spar in the dojo where he can be present to critque his students' technique? Meeting up for some extra rolling is fine, but students should spar under the supervision of a qualified instructor first.

To Holy Moment: Our Senseis stay after class a bit anyways to help out students who need the extra practice. That is when a bunch of us get into sparring. At times, the Senseis would see mistakes that a bunch of us are making. If it is small, he will quickly correct us, otherwise, he takes the mistake, and, next class, explain the mistake and how to best correct it. The thing is, for him, class-time is class-time. He has a specific regime that he sticks to for conditioning, and then we practice techniques afterwards. He then branches into a lecture drawing on the lesson, and what he specifically focused on for the techniques today, and explains how to extrapolate it into real-life situations, not fighting-oriented.

To Gregaquaman: We are a small dojo. The Senseis like to keep it that way for a more hands-on, and personalized way of teaching. They don't have videos, because if someone is willing to give it a try, but have other misconceptions, they will give free lessons for a while until they settle in, and feel it is right for them. They don't want to promote the dojo, because then it will become to commercialized, pumping out too many cookie-cutter fighters. At a proper dojo, you will NEVER waste your money. That is your first way of knowing we mean business. Best bet, go and give it a try. However, don't go in with a superior attitude, directly ask for free lessons, or any of the like. That will get you booted out faster than anything. Be genuinely interested. My 3rd degree karate black-belt friend decided to give it a try. He didn't take it afterwards, because it was a different style with different emphasis, something he didn't want to relearn everything for, but for the workout...he white-zoned...pale, threw up and had to sit out for 15 min or so. When it's real, it's serious.

To JudoA: Congrats, you found the cookie-cutter fighters. If you want to be effective with those dojos, you must go to Japan and get trained by their grandmaster. Like I said, it is in Guelph. The dojo is done out of the University, but they are not affiliated with the Uni at all.

Last edited by Ishamael; 8/30/2010 10:34am at .
Reason: Saw another post